China

Melissa Campanelli is Editor-in-Chief of Total Retail. She is an industry veteran, having covered all aspects of retail, tech, digital, e-commerce, and marketing over the past 20 years. Melissa is also the co-founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle.

Last year, China’s 1.3 billion plus people donated roughly $8 billion dollars to charity, down almost 18 percent on the previous year, according to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Now, Chinese foundations are tapping American nonprofit organizations for help in whipping Chinese foundations into better shape. As part of an agreement announced last week, U.S.-based nonprofit Give2Asia will donate one million yuan (more than $150,000) to China Foundation Center, a Beijing-based registered public charity.

In a country that spent the last three decades getting rich, Yang Lan wants to show that giving back is glorious.

Yang, a television host and one of China's wealthiest women, is leading a movement to encourage the growth of philanthropy.

She aims to gather some of the best resources from the U.S. nonprofit sector to help China build a modern system of philanthropy, and bring Chinese philanthropists here for exchanges with American foundations.

The country's top think tank said private-run enterprises were the major driving force for China's charity donations in 2009.

Private-run enterprises donated around 5.43 billion yuan ($812 million) in 2009, which accounted for about 41.35 percent of total donations from enterprises in 2009, according to an annual report on China's philanthropy development released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Tuesday.

BEIJING - Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett plan to sell the art of giving to China's super rich in a visit later this month that's already sparked some soul searching among the world's second-largest number of billionaires. Reactions to Gates and Buffett's trip have been swift and varied: One prominent Chinese philanthropist quickly pledged his entire fortune to charity, while the head of a private foundation said Chinese businesses should be leery of emulating American-style charity donations before essential corporate standards such as worker's rights are improved.

San Francisco, California, December 1, 2009 — Levi Strauss & Co. continued more than 25 years of pioneering leadership on HIV/AIDS by commemorating World AIDS Day 2009 with support from pioneering artists around the world. The company launched a global web site that spotlights work of global artists’ interpretation of World AIDS Day and encourages consumers to “know your status” in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The Levi Strauss Foundation also announced $2 million in grants in 2009 for organizations engaging in groundbreaking work on the pandemic.

Austin, TX, November 3, 2009 — Austin-based wayfinding and environmental graphic design consultant fd2s has completed the development of an innovative donor kiosk system for the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.